Eltham Palace

by Mary Phelan

First Impressions
Eltham Palace is one of those houses that simply cannot be summed up in a cliché. ‘A charming old house’, ‘a Gothic mansion’, ‘an imposing façade’ are superlatives that fail the visitor who crosses the moat via the North Stone Bridge to the ticket office.

Once across the bridge, the mystery deepens. The Palace seems to be composed of several buildings, not of one compact unit like a ‘regular’ palace. There is the building that houses the ticket office and a long, medieval-looking building with a gently bowed façade connecting both of them.

In front of this is a circular area of lawn with large tree in the centre. Beyond this part of the garden, as far as the eye can see, are undulations of grass, and trees, and plants, hinting at the delights beyond.

Eclecticism Explained
The eclecticism confronting the visitor can be explained, in part, by considering the history of the Palace. The moat gives a clue to the age of the site. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and half-brother of William the Conqueror is listed in the Domesday Book as owning the original manor of Eltham in 1086.

In 1295 the manor was acquired by Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, also a soldier and statesman. He built the wall around the moat and a timber bridge, probably where the North Stone Bridge is today and established a park south of the moat. In 1305, Bek presented the manor to the Prince of Wales, the future Edward II, who had often stayed there.

In the centuries that followed, Eltham became the residence of a succession of monarchs including Edward IV, who built the Great Hall – that medieval-looking building – in the 1470’s. Charles I (1600 – 1649) was the last monarch to visit the Palace and by the eighteenth century, it was in a state of disrepair.

Instead of putting visitors off, the ruinous state of the Palace actually attracted the attention of artists like Thomas Girtin and James WM Turner, whose watercolours of the Palace were considered to be ‘picturesque’.

In the nineteenth century much of the Palace was restored when it became a ‘gentleman’s residence’. Towards the end of the century the Board of Works continued this restoration.

In 1933 architects John Seely and Paul Paget were commissioned to restore the Great Hall and to build the new Entrance Hall. Steven and Virginia Courtauld moved to Eltham in 1936 and left it in 1944.

The Interiors
Unmissable experiences in the present-day building include taking afternoon tea in the ‘old’ kitchen. Among the artefacts to contemplate is a set of green and white storage jars, a feature of the 1936 kitchen, while feasting on delicious sandwiches and feather-light cake.

After refreshments we returned to the Entrance Hall. Light filters into the Hall through a glass dome. The large circular rug underneath the dome is a witty reference to this, and to the large, circular lawn or ‘Turning Circle’ directly outside.

The rug is actually a replica of the original and cream armchairs and settees, and walnut tables – replicas again - are contained within the area of the rug. Marquetry panels adorn the walls of the Hall. This ultra-modern interior has references to the past – a feature of Art Deco design and architecture – and this sets the theme for the remaining interiors.

There are several that you can take through the building but I recommend the following. From the Entrance Hall take the West stairs, i.e., the staircase on your right as you enter the building, to the Principal Landing. Turn down the corridor on your right and you will find yourself in the Minstrels’ Gallery, overlooking the Great Hall.

Note the ‘hammerbeam’ construction of the ceiling before looking down onto the crowds below – but don’t get dizzy. The Minstrels’ Gallery is not original, it is an innovation of the Courtaulds. Turn back along the corridor and enter the suite of Stephen Courtauld.

I found the atmosphere within the bedroom to be tranquil, evoked mainly by the remarkable wallpaper, block-printed with views of Kew Gardens lining the walls over panels of aspen. The bedroom leads into a surprisingly contemporary bathroom, with mosaic tiles of green, white and blue.

Leave Stephen’s suite and almost immediately, enter that of Virginia via a circular lobby. The lobby is a foretaste of things to come since Virginia’s bedroom is circular too, on a much larger scale. It is actually like a classical temple, its walls lined with maple wood and a niche over the bed that was once a shrine. The ceiling contains the main light source and central heating.

The classical theme is carried through into the bathroom. The onyx bath, with its gold-plated taps, sits in an alcove lined with gold mosaic. A statue of the goddess Psyche sits in a niche alongside.

Interior designers would do well to visit this bathroom, the compact elegance of which surpasses anything I have ever seen; the fixtures in the onyx walls, the glass shelves and chrome towel rails. Later I learned that the towel rails were heated. You leave Virginia’s suite where the unexplored wing of the corridor takes you past Mah-Jong’s quarter.

Mah-Jong was a lemur, a much-loved family pet, who had for his own use a cage decorated with forest scenes and a bamboo ladder. Continue along the corridor to the Venetian suite. It contains an opulent set of mirrors on which are painted arabesque designs. See it if you can.

Continue along the corridor until you descend by the East stairs. Once back in the Entrance Hall enter the Dining Room. It is here you will gain a better understanding of the meaning of art deco.

Art Deco Inspiration
Art Deco was in its heyday in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Geometrical motifs were combined with references to the past to create a highly stylised surface decoration. These motifs, along with many tones and textures, and references to Greek design put the Dining Room firmly in the tradition of Art Deco.

The walls and ceiling cove are lined with maple flexwood while the recessed part of the ceiling is covered with aluminium leaf. This same panel conceals the heating coils. The buff carpet is in contrast to the black marble perimeter of the floor. This black marble extends to the surround of the extraordinary fireplace; extraordinary because it is actually electric with imitation logs and is flanked on either side by ribbed, aluminium panels. A geometrical Greek pattern decorates the fireplace surround and this same pattern is repeated on the ebonised doors and side tables. The chairs are upholstered in pink and the buff inlay of the dining-table echoes the colour of the carpet.

When you have finished feasting on the colours and textures of the Dining Room, take leave of the Entrance Hall and go down the Great Hall Corridor to Virginia’s Boudoir. This mahogany-panelled room has an extraordinary built-in sofa, decorated with Italian cushions. The sofa is ‘built-in’ to a set of bookshelves and was innovative in the 1930’s. The Library, which is alongside the Boudoir, is also lined with mahogany. These walls now accommodate copies of watercolours by artists like Thomas Girtin and James Turner. The Library also houses a replica of Stephen Courtauld’s walnut desk.

When you leave this room, turn down the corridor to the ground-floor entrance of the Great Hall. When you have seen it from this perspective leave via the ‘secret’ passage.

The Garden
Stephen and Virginia were keen horticulturalists and the garden, or to be more accurate, gardens, reflect this. The existing gardens have been restored from the 1935 garden, which is a restoration of the elements that were created throughout the centuries. The following tour will introduce the new visitor to some of these elements.

Leave the Great Hall via the south door and turn right to descend the terraces to the sunken rose garden. Yes, it helps to be here in the summertime. As you leave the extravagant display of blooms that the path that leads north to the filled end of the moat. This is easy to see because a fountain marks it.

Then walk around the moat via the outer perimeter. The changing vista of house, greenery and exotic flowers alone make the trip worthwhile. When you come to the southernmost end of the moat walk across the field and climb up the bank to where a tree-lined path will lead you to the south timber bridge. Cross the bridge in the direction of the Great Hall but do not neglect to take in the view of undulating gardens to the west.

Once across the bridge, cross the grass to the east end of the house where the delights of the pergola await. In the summer, fronds of purple wisteria trail across a colonnade of stone Ionic columns. If the sun is shining, you can make believe you are in Italy. Before you leave this part of the garden look at the four relief carvings on the loggia of the house.

Turn back the way you came by the south wall of the Great Hall until you come to the Squash Court. Turn the corner and in a niche in the wall you will see a bronze statue of St George, by Alfred Hardiman, 1930. Continue walking and you will arrive back at the Turning Circle, the circular lawn outside the Entrance Hall.

Conclusion
There are many more elements of house and garden which I have not listed here; other rooms in the house, art treasures and gardens like the Rock Garden. However, I believe it would be a mistake to see Eltham Palace merely as a repository of art treasures. Several of the technological features; the under-floor and overhead heating, the internal telephone system, the heated towel rails, were innovative in their time and not generally in use.

Stephen and Virginia Courtauld had matched the latest technology of the day with the most contemporary design to create interiors that were stylish and luxurious, all in an ancient setting. Happily for us, they then left the house and its treasures to the nation when their focus changed.

Influences

Eltham Palace by Michael Turner, PhD, English Heritage, London.

Ham House

by Mary Phelan

Ham House is a gem on the Thames, a box of antique delights, an historical death-by-chocolate of events and royal connections so numerous that, if I were to enunciate all of them here, I would have to write a comprehensive history of the county of Surrey. The house is all at once a museum, an art gallery and an important heritage site. And all this is without mentioning the garden.

Ham House,
reproduced
by kind permission of the
National Trust.

The original house was built in 1610 when James I was on the throne. Like many historical houses, Ham House boasts a Great Hall. Originally, the hall of a house was where the family dined together with servants and guests. During the 1600’s this type of communal living went into decline and the Great Hall of Ham House came to be used as a reception area. For the present-day visitor it is the entrance to the rest of the house. And the black and white marble floor that you walk across is the one that was laid in 1610.

Leave the Great Hall and climb the Great Staircase to arrive at the upper floor of the house. The staircase was constructed in 1638-9 for William Murray, the First Earl of Dysart, who had owned Ham House at the age of twenty-six. He had been a childhood friend of Charles 1 and shared the monarch’s connoisseur tastes and appetite for collecting things. The balustrade of the Great Staircase reflects the turbulent times in which it was built, being carved with war trophies. The walls are lined with seventeenth-century paintings in contemporary frames, including works by Jacob de Gheyn II and Miguel de la Cruz. These paintings are a prelude to pictures on display in the Hall Gallery. Mostly portraits, several are by the seventeenth-century painter, Sir Peter Lely (1618 – 1680). Lely trained as a painter in Holland before moving to England in the 1640’s. He had the distinction of being the art dealer and agent to Hendrick van Uylenburgh, patron of the illustrious Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669).

From the Hall Gallery we progress through to the North Drawing Room. There is much to see in this richly decorated room, including tapestries that were hung in 1904. However, do not miss seeing the ivory cabinet, acquired at a time when ivory was a rare and expensive commodity. First mentioned in a 1677 inventory, it is intricately carved and very beautiful. No wonder then that it occupied the Queen’s Bedchamber between 1679 and 1683.

The North Drawing Room opens into the Long Gallery. The partly gilded, dark brown panelling dates from 1639. The paintings on display are in their original Sunderland frames supplied between 1672 and 1675 by John Norris, frame-maker to the Court. Among this collection of twenty-two paintings are portraits of the Murray family by Sir Peter Lely and from the studio of Sir Anthony van Dyck.

Opening immediately off of the Long Gallery is the Green Closet, so-called because in 1655 the room was hung with ‘greene stuffe’. The present silk damask hangings and upholstery are copies of the post 1672 green damask. The walls are hung with pictures and miniatures. The fire place is furnished with a fire pan garnished with silver and a brass fender that dates from 1683. You leave the Green Closet and proceed to the Queen’s Antechamber at the other end of the Long Gallery.

This was previously a library and was converted into an antechamber to the adjacent Queen’s Bedchamber in 1673-74. Incredibly the present wall coverings were acquired between 1679 and 1683. Made of damask they are bordered with velvet and have faded from blue to brown. This room has a definite oriental flavour what with the three Qing vases on the chimneypiece dating from 1660 and the lacquer close-stool that has stood here since 1679. It is made of oak inlaid with mother-of-pearl and japanned in the oriental style. In later centuries we became well accustomed to ‘chinoisserie’ but in the 1600’s, oriental objects were very rare and precious. From the Antechamber proceed to the Queen’s Bedchamber.

Sadly the most magnificent of the treasures are here no longer. Those include the State Bed that was hung with silk in summer and velvet in winter. However one part of the elaborate parquetry floor survives as do the plasterwork ceiling and marble fireplace. The inset over the fireplace The Virgin and Child with Saint John is after the lost fresco of the Porta Pinti in Florence by Andrea del Sarto. The sixteenth century writer, Giorgio Vasari, describes the artist painting the original work in his seminal book Lives of the Artists. The present pieces of furniture were all made in the eighteenth century as were the tapestries, which feature figures and motifs from the paintings of Antoine Watteau.

You leave the Queen’s Bedchamber and enter the Queen’s Closet, a private room for use only by the Queen or whoever was occupying the bedchamber. The furniture dates from the 1600’s. Note especially the ‘sleeping’ chair on the dais, made with an adjustable back in almost contemporary fashion. Here the upstairs tour ends and the visitor returns downstairs to explore the remainder of the house.

You return through the Great Hall to find the almost hidden entrance to the Duchess’s Private Closet. This was where the Duchess kept her books, her tea and some of her valuables, tea being an expensive commodity in the seventeenth century. Much of the furniture is lacquered in the eastern style, the Orient being the source of tea. The furniture is original as is the ‘white crackled teapot’ that, by tradition, was the personal teapot of Elizabeth Murray, the daughter of William and who later on, became the Duchess of Lauderdale. The painting on the ceiling is The Penitent Magdalen by Antonio Verrio (c. 1639 – 1707).

From the Duchess’s Private Closet you progress into the adjoining White Closet. This was the Duchess’s inner sanctum where she could entertain her friends, read, write and surround herself with small works of art. It gets its name from the white silk with which the walls were originally hung. Like the Queen’s Closet it has a painting by Verrio on the ceiling, Divine Wisdom presiding over the Liberal Arts. The writing cabinet is also remarkable and it dates from 1675. The inset over the fireplace is a painting of Ham House as it was in the 1670’s by Henry Danckerts (1625 – 79).

Ham House,
reproduced
by kind permission of the
National Trust.

From the White Closet it is a straight run through the Volury Room with its tapestry after Nicholas Poussin and Kangxi bowls on the chimneypiece, to the Withdrawing or drawing room with its looking-glass and pier tables flanked by candle stands, to the Marble Dining Room. This centrally placed room was also a reception room and the name recalls the black and white marble floor of the Great Hall, of which the step into the Hall is all that survives. The walls are now hung with gilded leather that dates from 1756 and most remarkable among the furniture is a pair of marble wine coolers that resemble highly ornate drinking troughs.

The white marble wine cooler is probably Dutch and is the ‘marble sisterne’ listed in 1677. It would have been filled with ice to chill the wine and other drinks. From the Marble Dining Room you walk through the duke’s Dressing Room to the Duchess’s Bed Chamber. In the 1650’s this was a nursery but by 1677 the Duchess was again in occupation. Here there is an interesting alcove with an ornate bed in it. The surround of the alcove was carved in 1673 but the bed and the wall hangings are modern interpretations.

Over the fireplace is a portrait of the Duchess Elizabeth Murray, Lady Tollemache, later Countess of Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale by Sir Peter Lely. However, what I find most interesting about the bedroom is that it used to connect with the Duchess’s bathroom in the chamber underneath in the basement of the house. According to the guidebook:

‘The bathing tubb and little stoole within it’ was probably placed in the smaller room still paved in black and white. A tent-like canopy was arranged around the bath creating a steamy atmosphere within, rather like a Turkish bath. Afterwards, the Duchess would have retired to the main room.

Here, the Duchess would have been anointed with oils and wrapped in towels, then rested on a bed before returning to her chamber. Visitors today can see the paved bathing area by going down the basement stairs to the kitchen. The present kitchen table possibly dates from the seventeenth century with most of the cooking utensils dating from the nineteenth century. However the kitchen museum is charming and well worth seeing.

By now the visitor will have seen most of the main part of the house. However, there is one essential of an old, great house that I haven't yet mentioned: the ghost. Ham House boasts several, including the spectre of the Duchess herself. Elizabeth Murray died in 1698 but is said to be reluctant to leave her house. She is said to routinely walk up and down the Great Staircase, sometimes accompanied by the scent of her rose perfume.

And she is said to still occupy her bedchamber and by the fireplace that once led to her bathroom. There are other manifestations. Visitors have seen a King Charles spaniel scampering on the first-floor landing of the stairs. There are frequent reports of heavy footsteps, slamming doors, loud bangs and the noise of objects being dragged coming from the second floor and the attic where the servants used to live.

Sometimes the pungent aroma of tobacco arises in the House - a place where smoking is strictly forbidden. And then there is the ghost of a restless cleric. And the spectre of a young man who jumped to his death in 1780. Even the last Earl of Dysart, who died in 1935, is restless in his grave. Every Christmas the raps of his walking cane can be heard upon the door of the small house by the gate, once occupied by his chauffeur. Only, the Earl is never outside or the presents he used to bring.

Truly, if the material delights of Ham House do not satisfy you, the spectral ones will.

The Red House

by Mary Phelan

In 1859 the twenty-five-year-old William Morris (1834 – 1896) conceived the idea, along with architect Phillip Webb of building a unique type of house.

Morris, a writer, designer and practising architect was looking for a suitable home for himself and his wife, Jane Burden. The site he had chosen was in the Thames valley, near the river Cray. Today we know it as Bexley Heath. In the nineteenth century the suburbs were rapidly expanding outward from London and Morris, if he had wanted, could have chosen a home from the selection of new buildings.

But Morris had always scorned the ‘readymade’. He detested the cheap goods that rolled off the factory production lines, the spawning of the Industrial Revolution that had begun one century earlier. It was entirely in keeping with his nature to seek to build something new.

It is a paradox then that the result, the Red House, which was finished in 1860, appears to be very old. It is in the words of Fiona MacCarthy, the biographer of Morris, ‘like a mushroom that appeared overnight, looking like it had never not been there.’

Much has been written about the medieval or ‘gothic’ references on the House. These are no coincidence. Even as a boy Morris had always loved the middle ages. When he had been a student at Oxford University, he had entertained the notion of becoming a priest in a monastic community. Indeed there is something faintly ecclesiastical about the stained glass panes, the finials ornamenting the wooden staircase to the first floor of the House. The roof is hipped and gabled, there are arches over the windows outside and the fireplaces inside and an oriel window overlooks the garden to the West of the House. Despite the veneer of antiquity, Morris had indeed succeeded in creating something new. Inside there are no formal passages or corridors connecting the rooms. The “Art-and-Craft” garden, with its floral borders, was to be a foreshadowing of things to come.

Today the Red House is bounded on all sides by the suburbs of Bexley Heath, ironic when you consider that Morris had it built as a country idyll, a “paradise on earth”. Five years after it was built the Morris family had abandoned the ‘country’ experiment and removed to a home nearer London, Hammersmith to be exact. Commuting to and from his London office was simply too physically exacting for Morris. Bexley Heath commuters will groan at the greater irony that has seen the suburbs creep out to meet the Red House in the century since, but commuting really was more difficult in those days.

But in his building of the Red House and designing furniture for it, Morris had laid down the seeds of the Art and Craft movement, one that was to inspire later architects like Charles Voysey (1857 – 1941). And it was the Arts and Craft type home, designed by Voysey that became the prototype of our present-day suburban home.

I find it altogether too eclectic to be summed up as “gothic”. Most of the windows are paned in the classical manner, the only truly medieval window being the diamond-paned oriel window. The arches are shaped like bishop’s mitres, being altogether too whimsical to be true gothic arches. Quite simply, the Red House does not have the linear, upward-aspiration of the true gothic building.

Strawberry Hill Villa

by Mary Phelan

In 1748 Sir Horace Walpole purchased Strawberry Hill Villa in Twickenham, West London. For the next two decades he rebuilt and decorated the villa in what came to be known as the gothic fashion.

The villa has been ‘restored’ and built on to, several times since, most notably in the nineteenth century by Lady Waldegrave. Luckily for the present-day curators, Walpole kept a catalogue of everything he did for the house so it is not difficult to distinguish between eighteenth and nineteenth century work. We know, for instance, that the decorative detail on the ceiling of the Long Gallery is made from papier maché. Inside and out, Strawberry Hill is the ultimate rich man’s fantasy.

The house is a heady mixture of decadence and monasticism. Inside there is, among other rooms a Refectory (very monastic!), a library, a Long Gallery, a Holbein room, a Star Chamber and a Turkish room.

The entrance to the villa is through a courtyard, not unlike the entrance to a church. The windows that greet the visitor are arched in ecclesiastical fashion with ‘holy water’ fonts underneath the windowsills. A mini cloister runs alongside, guiding the visitor to the main door.

Inside, many of the wall coverings and ceiling cornices are pink, the ‘strawberry’ theme being carried throughout. There are the stained glass windows begun by Walpole and extended or altered by Lady Waldegrave. Other details are too numerous to mention here: ceiling mouldings, 3-D arches over the fireplaces, arched doorways, chandeliers or ‘gasoliers’, damask-covered walls.

The Star Chamber is the most ecclesiastical of all the rooms. The floor plan is laid out to resemble the shape of a star. Its walls have niches that are inlaid with medieval-type panels upon which are painted scenes of saints and angels. Until recently this room was a chapel, now deconsecrated.

From the outside, at the back of the house, we can see the round house and the turret that Horace built, also the ogee arched windows and quatrefoils that lighten the appearance of the building. The crenulations along the perimeter of the roof have the appearance of medieval battlements.

The Round Room, the interior of the round house that can be seen from outside, has damask-covered walls and a Waterford crystal chandelier over the round table in the centre of the room, dating from the time of Lady Waldegrave.

Strawberry Hill is located on Waldegrave Road in Twickenham and is open to restricted groups. For further information phone 020 8240 4000.